Posted 3 years ago on March 26, 2012, 8:42 a.m. EST by gonzo1
(65)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement

If we want to have democratically run workplaces (cooperatives), then we have to work for creating them.

Just to dream about taking over the already existing workplaces won't work. First of all, its much more honest to create a thing than to take over something that is not yours. However, even in the case of taking over, we lack the training and experience to manage them in a democratically manner. And the best way to have the needed experience is to create those workplaces and learning how to run them. There is no better experience than the one we get from practicing.

We have to start making cooperatives and we have to stop finding excuses for not making them. We have to make brainstorms for finding the best solutions to create and expand the cooperatives. We have to communicate a lot and to find the best ideas.

Also we should try to engage the already existing cooperatives into cooperating with us, and we have to try to help them to grow so they can give jobs to more people, and we should try to unite them under the same activist umbrella (making a web forum for all of them might be a good start).

Before the crisis, the people didn't create cooperatives because they had "reasons" like "we are not communists!"

Now the people want cooperatives but they don't create them for the "reason" that "rich people have all the resources".

So there is always an excuse for not doing what we have to do.

We can start making democratically run workplaces by starting [b]democratically run activities[/b]. If it's too expensive to start workplaces, at least we can start various activities that don't involve any money. We can do many things: we can add data related to transparency to Wikipedia, we can even clean the street together, and many other things. Any activity is better than nothing, because we can practice teamwork and we can practice conducting activities in a democratic manner. And activities are the foundation for workplaces and jobs. If we learn how to act together, then we learn also how to do work together in a production facility. Working is just an aspect of activity.

Therefore, I suggest we start to create cooperatives and that we start other activities too. Just protesting out in the street can not build solutions.

If you allow the leaders of the OWS to only call you to protest in the street, then you will transform them into politicians. The politicians are all charlatans because they never implement solutions BEFORE coming into power. They promise they will give you solutions only if you give them power.

Please, don't let OWS create a new generation of politicians (charlatans). Please, let's start to build the solutions we need, before seeing any political change.

The problem for today's problems are not only politicians. There is an even greater problem in the big NGO's because they are all fake and fraud. If they would not be like that, they could solve all the problems on their own (they can simply give work to the poor, so they can produce what they need). And the biggest problem is us, because we allow all those NGO's to be fake, and because we haven't even started to create the democratically run workplaces and communities.

The problem is much deeper than just politics. The problem is also in us.

3 Comments

Good post. This actually meshes with the concept being suggested by some that in order to truly make the necessary changes, we must approach the problems from the bottom up (changing our mindset, acting locally, divestment from the mega-corporations, etc.) as well as the top down (politically).

Thanks. The people could start cooperatives since at least 1900 or so. They refused to do it, even when they had the most prosperous life in the world. And now they want to take over other's properties, to transform them into cooperatives! All the previous generations of communists and socialists in the USA were mostly dumb or charlatans, because they always dreamed on STEALING private property, instead of BUILDING cooperatives.

I can't help but wonder: why do people refuse to learn from the errors of the past, and why they are so happy to repeat them?